


Let Me Hold You, Please

by OneCoffeeMug



Series: FFXIV Drabbles, One Shots, and the like [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Not Beta Read, i have too many emotions and they need out, just fuck me up baby, nope all angst, this was going to be a way more silly story but my fingers were like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28093260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneCoffeeMug/pseuds/OneCoffeeMug
Summary: Some more Alisaie/WoL content, but this time with Extra Feelings on top. WoL is my own char, who's a lalafell if that matters for you.
Relationships: Alisaie Leveilleur/Original Character(s), Alisaie Leveilleur/Warrior of Light
Series: FFXIV Drabbles, One Shots, and the like [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048966
Kudos: 13





	Let Me Hold You, Please

Soft candlelight illuminates a corner of The Seventh Dawn where two of the many scions sit, pastries and a tea set rest atop the table they occupy, 

“You’ll have to be more direct, otherwise your continuous advances will merely be interpreted as friendly gestures.”

Alisaie sighs, the tea in her hands much too cold now to be properly enjoyed. Y’shtola, sitting across her, simply shrugs, as if that would help her in any way.

“Our Warrior may be smart, but I fear that her intelligence is only of the academic kind.” the miqo’te says, lowering her own cup to the table. “Remind us, how long did it take to get it through her skull that she can rely on us?”

“Till she was bursting at the seams with light.” Alisaie groans out, leaning back against her chair. “Still, how more direct can I be? Shall I simply bodily hoist her and-” Her brain decides right then to catch up to her mouth, and the pause is all Y’shtola needs to give her a sly look that makes her entire face catch on fire.

“I said nothing.” Y’shtola says, the smile on her face staying for a moment, before leaving for a more serious look. “Still, I’d suggest you follow whatever it is your heart tells you to do. The worst that may come of this would be a simple ‘No’.”

“Why did I come to you for advice again?”

“Because Urianger would have given you a reading which, invariably, would have spawned an unnecessarily convoluted plan.Thancred’s advice, on the other hand, would most likely be similar to mine, with the addition of the corniest pickup lines.Krile and Tataru are in cahoots with her, and would spill the tea immediately. Alphinaud would give you a poem for you to serenade her with, and G’raha… well, you wouldn’t ask a rival for advice.”

Alisaie lets out an indignant huff and stands up, leaving the teacup on the table. “Thanks for the advice” she says, deadpan. “I think some fresh air will do me well, if anyone needs me tell them I’ll be in the balcony” she continues, and without waiting for an answer, she heads outside.

\----

There’s a strange kind of peace high up in the House of Splendor’s balconies. A general quietness of people enjoying their food and drink while calmly chatting; a great difference from the constant and loud conversations that come from the street level, where adventurers, merchants, and travelers all congregate to trade, sell, and tell stories.

Alisaie feels more like the streets than the balcony, though that’s not something entirely new to her; after all, she’s always been the more impulsive one between herself and her brother. Alphinaud has always been the more quiet one, who plans ahead, takes his time, considers all options before finally taking the plunge.

She wonders, then, if she had more of his attributes that she wouldn’t have gotten and given Mumugo that particular flower when they were in Othard. She still remembers Hien’s look of quiet disbelief at Mumugo’s reaction, and how later that day, when night had fallen in the House, he had clapped her on the back and offered her a bottle of sake.

She wonders if knowledge about local herbs, roots, and everything plant-y that is related to cooking doesn’t, in any way, teaches one about the more cultural meanings of the same plants, or the flowers of said plants.

“Hey”

Alisaie startles to attention, and turns to her left. There, standing with her back leaning against the same parapet Alisaie’s been hunched over for who knows how long, is Mumugo, with a look of concern strewn on her face.

She gives a small nod of greeting to the lalafell, and that seems to be all she needs, as the look of concern evaporates and a small, easygoing smile soon replaces it. With both arms and a small hop, the Dunesfolk woman climbs up the parapet, and after a few moments of settling down, sits with her legs dangling over the drop, facing the street below.

“Y’shtola said you were looking for me, so, what’s up?”

For a moment Alisaie bristles at the implications, she can very well take care of her own problems, thank you very much, but that soon fades as she lets out a long sigh. Might as well get this over with, after all, even though she sometimes wishes she had some of her brother’s more contemplative nature, that did end up with him missing his chance at romance, or at least at an attempt at it, and she has asked Y’shtola for help.

She’s not about to let her own attempt slip through her fingers.

“I’ve been thinking…”

“That’s good!”

“Shush” Alisaie says, though she can’t help but let a small smile form on her lips. “Have you ever fallen in love?”

“Damn”

She watches as Mumugo sways, side to side, as she thinks. “Some pretty big thoughts you’ve been thinking, then” the lalafell says, quietly, before turning to face her. “Where did this come from?”

Alisaie can’t help but evade the shorter woman’s gaze, her own head turning back towards the crowd below. She feels her lips move, words come out even though her mind is running a malm a second and so far away. “Just been in my mind, I guess. With our bodies back here in the Source, and in this seeming moment of quiet, thoughts about things most mundane just… manifest.”

She hears Mumugo hum beside her, and after a too long and excruciating moment, she turns to face the lalafell. Mumugo looks… lost, almost, with a far away look, her usual confident and easygoing face completely absent in the moment.

It seemingly vanishes in a second, however, and Alisaie has to blink to register that. “Well, who’s the lucky one who’s got your attention? I don’t see how I could help with this but if Y’shtola thinks I can then, maybe I can?” Mumugo says, eyes crinkling up as she grins, lopsided, and ere Alisaie not someone who’s known her for so long, would not see it as the fake thing it is.

“You” she wants to say, but instead “Someone close to me, you know her, in fact.” is what she settles for. Mumugo cocks her head to one side, thinking, and after what feels like hours of deliberation,but are instead just a few moments, the lalafell finally says “...Krile?” with a great degree of uncertainty in her voice.

For a moment she wants to laugh, laugh laugh and cry and laugh some more, because,of course, that would be the most Mumugo conclusion one could get out of that set of information. Krile, who she is, in fact, quite close to. Krile, who isn’t Y’shtola, someone who she’s also somewhat close to, but who wouldn’t have set Mumugo out to talk to her about this were Y’shtola the one she had her sights on. Not Tataru or Lyse, who she’s close to, but in a more professional sense, and not any other scion or archon, or gods, anyone else who they’ve met.

Krile.

“Not Krile” she says instead, and watches as Mumugo scrunches up her face in confusion, licks her lips, opens her mouth, closes it, and then says “Alright, I’m beat then.”

“You”, once more, is what she wants to say, but instead it’s a sigh she settles for, long and containing all the inward self-loathing she has. Can’t she say a simple word? A single sentence with a three letters long word? 

“Wait”

It seems, blessedly, that a spark of realization has ignited in her friend’s head. And Alisaie ,turning back to face Mumugo, watches as the lalafell’s face goes through a series of expressions too fast to catalogue. Dread and relief both pool inside her, finally, it will be out in the open and she’ll get her answer.

“Why?”

Alisaie can hear the screeching sound of her brain coming to a sudden, graceless, halt.

“Why? Why why? Do I have to give you reasons, now? Do I have to explain to you why someone may come to like you? Why I have come to like you?” She feels herself ablaze, and something inside her seems to give, and it spills out, uncontrolled “It’s love, Mumugo! Plain, simple, or at least it should be, but noooo, with you It, has, not, been. I’ve tried, so many times, and had to rely on others, too, to help me, and gods it never did work, did it? I guess all it took was just shy of spelling it out to you!”

For a moment, she’s breathless, gulping dry and panting, and she cares not that there’s a good chance that she’s making a scene, because now, all she cares about is this person, this woman in front of her, who’s looking at her wide eyed and stock still.

The fight leaves her just as quick as it entered, and she feels cold.

Mumugo, for a good while, just sits there, still and unblinking, eyes wide and mouth opening, closing, and opening again. Alisaie feels… she’s not entirely sure? It’s a mixture of things, hard to pry apart, but her stomach is roiling now and she, physically, feels sick.

And then the lalafell breathes, the spell is broken, and time seems to move once more. Alisaie watches as Mumugo averts her gaze, bites her lips, almost enough to make it bleed, and then -

“I… thought so”

“What-”

“Just, listen, I… Didn’t want to, to believe that, so… I…”

“I had someone” - and Alisaie inhales, sharp, her ribs hurt - “and he was, he was good? You know, we met, gods, so long ago. Ishgard was cold, full of conniving bastards and backstabbing monsters, but him? He was one of the few good ones, full of life and love and, gods…”

Mumugo looks tired, eyes far away, and the words that come out of her lips are whispered and brittle.

“He probably is, was, the reason we’ve even made it this far. If it weren’t for him Ishgard would still be embroiled in a futile war against Nidhogg’s brood; we would most likely have been found and judged by Ul’dah, and this” - she gestures around her -” wouldn’t be like how it is. He died protecting me.”

Alisaie has heard of this, from her brother, but never in this much detail; not this raw. Still, something doesn’t seem to add up, and right now all she wants is to understand.

“So, what?”

Mumugo looks surprised at her for a moment, and sure, that probably ranks high in the ‘Insensitive Things I’ve Said’ list for Alisaie, but she feels like the situation calls for it. The lalafell, for what is worth, seems to take the question seriously, and after some thought, she answers.

“I guess, that if you are to fall in love with anyone, then wouldn’t it be prudent to do so with someone who’s not going to die, or make you die?”

“Wait, so all of this is because you’re afraid of dying!?”

Mumugo looks affronted, almost. “What, no! I don’t care if I die, but what if you die? Can you imagine how Alphinaud would be like? Or the rest of the Scions for that matter; they would be devastated! I’m not going to endanger -”

Alisaie moves without thinking, and the hug she gives the lalafell cuts her off mid-sentence.

“You are, possibly, the stupidest person in this whole star.”

“Whuh?”

She pulls her closer, her chest pressing against Mumugo’s back,her arms pinning the lalafells against her own sides, warmth and cold both filling her in equal measures.

“Have you, perchance, wondered if we would care about your death?”

Mumugo squirms, but doesn’t put too much of a fight against the surprisingly strong hold the elezen has on her. “I… guess? Aren’t I the Warrior of Light? or that and Darkness, I guess.”

“So? That doesn’t excuse you to be so cavalier with your life.”

She feels the lalafell shrug, and a whispered “That’s how I feel anyway” almost goes by unheard, but not quite.

“I can make my own decisions too, or do you think I don’t know the risks? That being tied to you would be dangerous, more so than simply as a comrade-at-arms but as something more? Do you think I haven’t thought about this?”

Mumugo is still, and for a good few minutes there’s only the sounds of the bustling crowds below. Then, Alisaie hears an exhale and quietly, softly.

“I’m afraid.”

“So afraid that you would deny yourself your own emotions?” Alisaie says, her voice just a whisper above the crowds. “Even if you say no to me, I would have thought that at least we had managed to get it through you that we do, in fact, care about your wellbeing, that you can rely on us.”

“I…” Mumugo sighs, “that at least, has been hammered in my head, gods know I myself have been doing so… It’s just, I don’t want a repeat of a few weeks of happiness followed by months of crushing… everything.”

The two of them stay silent for a while, the sounds of the crowd below almost disappear into the background of their thoughts. Alisaie barely registers the back of Mumugo’s head pressing against her collarbone, and that’s how they stay for minutes, until the silence is finally broken with a simple question.

“Would you risk it? You said you had thought about the risks, but would you?”

“I would,” Alisaie says, “because cutting myself from a good future just because a bad one might happen instead doesn’t sound like a life well lived.”

Alisaie feels Mumugo move her arms, getting them off from beneath her own. For a moment, she wonders if the lalafell will push her away, pry herself off, and finally say no. Instead, what happens is that Alisaie feels two small hands fall atop her own, fingers prodding between the spaces of her own digits, in a sort of backwards hold.

“Then, I think I’ll risk it too, if you’ll still have me?”

“I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Any feedback is appreciated, and have a good day!


End file.
